Looking across Moreton Bay from the foreshore at Clontarf on the Redcliffe peninsula

Starting from nothing

Thinking of starting a Voices Group?

There is no group near you, or none that fits. Here is what it actually takes — and what we can and cannot do to help.

Already got a group?

This page is for people starting from nothing. If your group already exists and is simply not in the directory, you do not need any of it — put your group straight on the map.

Add your group to the directory

Most voices groups start the same way: a few people who are tired of decisions being made about their area without anyone asking the people who live in it. That is a good enough reason to begin. It is not, on its own, enough to keep going.

What you would actually be taking on

We are three years in, so this is written from experience rather than theory.

Finding the first handful of people is the hard part, and it does not get easier by waiting. Everything else follows from having five or six people who will keep turning up.
Listening is the work. Not campaigning, not commentary — going out and asking your neighbours what matters to them, and keeping a record honest enough that you can show it to a councillor without flinching.
You will need to be an organisation eventually — a constitution, a committee, a bank account, insurance, a register of members. Not on day one, but sooner than you would like.
Volunteers come and go. Anything that only one person knows how to do will stop when that person does. This is the single biggest thing we got wrong early.
Being genuinely non-partisan is harder than declaring it. It shapes who can join, what you publish, and what you do at election time.

What we can offer

What we have learned, honestly. How we run our own organisation, what worked, what wasted a year, and the documents we drafted so you do not have to start from a blank page. A conversation with someone who has done it recently is worth more at this stage than any software.

What we cannot offer

Not a platform, and not yet. The tools we use run on a system we do not own, so we cannot hand them over. What we are developing is a way of working and the guidance to go with it, and it is not finished. We would rather say that plainly now than have you build on a promise we cannot keep.

We also do not run other groups, approve them, or speak for them. There is no national body and NCV holds no standing over anyone else's group. Every group is entirely its own.

Tell us what you are thinking

No form and no sign-up — just an email. It helps if you say roughly where you are, what prompted you, and whether there is anyone else in it with you yet.

It comes to David Grogan, President of Northside Community Voices, who designed the Listening model and the directory. He answers these himself.

Email David directly

[email protected]

If a group already exists near you, join that one instead — two half-groups in one area help nobody. Check the directory first.